What's love got to do with it?

[ameliajax]

This question was sparked by a simpler question. What does PYL mean in terms of a BDSM or Dom/sub relationship? Person you love? And is this acronym only used in BDSM? Is it sometimes capitalized and sometimes lower case depending on who your are talking about, a Dom or a sub? And is that silly? Or is it not, since I feel compelled to capitalize Dom and leave sub lower case?

And then I was trying to write a new blog post, and it struck me again. I'm writing this blog about my experiences in discovering and exploring the submissive in me. But I've only experienced a Dom/sub relationship with one person. A person I had an intense history with (a history that seems more complicated as I'm trying to write about it in the stupid blog.) But this is a person I have always loved. And always trusted.

It's hard for me to imagine that kind of relationship with someone I did not have similar feelings for.

Can you reach the level of trust needed in a D/s relationship, or any other BDSM relationship, without there also being love?

For anyone who is or has been on either side of a D/s or BDSM relationship ... is there always love, or can it be more ... serviceable?

 

[BiBunny]

PYL/pyl stands for "pick your label." As far as I know, it's exclusive to Lit. It was coined because at one time, the slaves would get their panties in a wad if you called them subs and other silly bullshit like that. So in order to keep every thread from devolving into a label thread, someone made up the PYL/pyl thing.

PYL with caps = Top, dom, master, what-have-you

pyl without caps = Bottom, sub, slave, whatever

A relationship can be whatever the people involved want it to be. There can be mutual love, or there can not be mutual love, or there can be one-sided love. It's all in what you want from your relationship and/or what you're willing to live with.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

For anyone who is or has been on either side of a D/s or BDSM relationship ... is there always love, or can it be more ... serviceable?

Bunny's already answered most of your questions in this post... TMK, PYL/pyl *was* exclusive to Lit, though it may well have spread a bit further - I think I recently saw it in a FetLife post...

As for your "is there always love, or can it be more ... serviceable?" IMNSHO, of course it can be more "serviceable" (before Stella pops in with a link to her essay on tops, service tops, etc. ) I've "played with" (spanked, flogged, caned, etc.) women with whom I had NO personal relationship, some with whom I was merely friend/acquaintance, etc. It all boils down to having a level of trust - on both sides! - that the other will not unduly take advantage of one.

 

[LittleSparks]

I find this really interesting. I don't think my dom and I would be able to play if we weren't completely enamored with each other. It even took us a few years to "come out" of the BDSM closet to each other, so to speak (though we'd been practicing without any self-awareness almost since we began dating). But I do find it interesting that some others have no problem going forward without such feelings. Maybe those who have experienced this can elaborate a little for those like me and ameliajax, who don't understand yet.

 

[ameliajax]

PYL/pyl stands for "pick your label." As far as I know, it's exclusive to Lit. It was coined because at one time, the slaves would get their panties in a wad if you called them subs and other silly bullshit like that. So in order to keep every thread from devolving into a label thread, someone made up the PYL/pyl thing.

PYL with caps = Top, dom, master, what-have-you

pyl without caps = Bottom, sub, slave, whatever

A relationship can be whatever the people involved want it to be. There can be mutual love, or there can not be mutual love, or there can be one-sided love. It's all in what you want from your relationship and/or what you're willing to live with.

Ah ha! Thanks, Bunny! That's why I had never come across this acronym before. I really thought in some other thread someone had referred to it as "person you love."

So here is a further question. And I have read Stella's rather excellent essay. But I'm wondering about people's personal experiences. Do you think it is different for a Dom vs. a sub or a Top vs. a Bottom? I, myself, can't imagine putting as much trust I need to in someone whom I did not think had at least feelings of great affection for me.

For someone capable of being a "service bottom", where does the trust come from?

 

[IrisAlthea]

You can service bottom or service top for someone you love.

Trust without love is not that uncommon if you take it out of the BDSM context. Think of the boss or coworker you trust to be competent but don't love and perhaps even dislike or the doctor you trust to make the right decisions about your treatment even if his bedside manners suck.

 

[praefect]

I think you can reach a level of intensity without love that can be mistaken for intimacy to stupid people like me, but it's less of a connection. It's less "I'm with you because of who you are as a person" and more "I'm with you because of what you do as a Master". It's not actually all that easy to always distinguish one from the other. At least it wasn't easy for me.

Now what about trust. When intensity becomes a main driver something else happens that is easy to mistake for trust. When I told my slave that her safeword was something that she had because I allowed her to have it, not because she had a privilege to one, that wasn't a state of affairs she accepted out of trust for me, she accepted it because it made her wet. I didn't trust myself at the time, so she really had no reason at all to trust me, but she rationalized it as trust, called it that, even when it was just foolishness and need disguised as such. And when I pushed boundaries little by little, or then took her safeword away, she didn't accept this because she trusted me, but because the fear, exposure, thrill of all that, but most importantly, the adjudication of all self responsibility, was intensely erotic to her.

It's a different kind of relationship, prone to escalations.

In my case, when it all was sunshine and rainbows, it was all wonderful, till it wasn't. Something pretty bad happened, and I wasn't able to be the Master anymore. A person that would have loved me and trusted me would have given me some time to recoup. A person that was only interested in me because of what I did on the other hand, not so much. What had happened was that a kid from an ex died and I was withdrawing from the whole BDSM thing, and as a consequence of that my slave set out to piss me off, big time, all the time. Some support would have been nice, or at least some peace if not that, but instead she set out to corner me with one drama bomb after the next. Constant fighting, all the time. She didn't care what I felt, she only cared about that I, for whatever reason, even if it's because of anger, hate, uncontrolled flailing about blind rage, maintained control and ownership over her. Something I didn't want to do anymore, didn't have the strength for anymore. It was a nightmare.

Not all relationships like this crash and burn that hard I suspect. There is probably a way to maintain it, barring disaster. I'm betting on that it is. And if they are, then neither love nor trust have to factor into it. They certainly wouldn't have to on a limited engagement, at least.

 

[Primalex]

Great, we are down to a biweekly topic repetition now.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=43311563&postcount=29

 

[ameliajax]

Great, we are down to a biweekly topic repetition now.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=43311563&postcount=29

That's actually an interesting point of view, Primalex, and one I would like to explore further. Why can't you share it without the snark?

Not everyone has the time to read every thread/post that may or may not pertain to the topic at hand ...

 

[ameliajax]

You can service bottom or service top for someone you love.

Trust without love is not that uncommon if you take it out of the BDSM context. Think of the boss or coworker you trust to be competent but don't love and perhaps even dislike or the doctor you trust to make the right decisions about your treatment even if his bedside manners suck.

I understand you point, IrisAlthea. But trusting a lover/Master to play rough with me and know his limits, or mine, or trusting him to hurt me without going too far is a much deeper level of trust than the trust you have in an otherwise unlikeable boss or doctor. At least, it seems that way to me.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I understand you point, IrisAlthea. But trusting a lover/Master to play rough with me and know his limits, or mine, or trusting him to hurt me without going too far is a much deeper level of trust than the trust you have in an otherwise unlikeable boss or doctor. At least, it seems that way to me.

Depending on your line of work or the medical procedure it can even be a life and death question.

Another thing to remember is that love doesn't necessarily make a person more trustworthy or more competent.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I play with people I don't love, and I play with people I don't have much connection with-- but I find that play is a conduit towards connection for me, more often than the other way around. Play once, it's getting to know you, Play twice, it's getting into your head. Play three times-- we're starting to flow.

 

[njlauren]

There are people who play who simply know each other, are play partners (I guess roughly equivalent to a fuck buddy in vanilla sex). I have seen M/s relationships where there isn't any kind of romantic tie, love, it is strictly Master and slave as such (I have seen cases where a wife is sub, hubby is not into it, and she has an M/s with an outside master, that one puzzles me how that works, but apparently it does). I guess the way I put my mind around it when I started deciphering this, is that an M/s, D/s can have many layers to it, some have more then others. Because the M/s, D/s has its own basis for happening, in service or in taking direction, it can exist without the romantic. For me personally, I could never have something like this without being romantically involved, for me the submission is as much a matter of the heart as it is of the dynamic itself. It is why I have waited as I have to bring this back in my own life with the only person I have ever loved, gotten through all the horrible bullshit, because without that, it wouldn't be real for me..but that is me.

 

[LittleSparks]

That actually makes a whole lot of sense to me Stella. I guess if my relationship with my master hadn't developed the way it has, and I were still single, then this would probably be my case. I guess I hadn't had the chance to think about how I would act independently, in such a situation. Subtastic.

 

[Dyslexicea]

I think for some there may have to be love or at least a very close emotional bond for any type of sexual relationship, being vanilla or D/s, in all its varieties.

For others, like myself, who can separate their sexual being from their emotional being, enjoying sex for the sake of sex, I think, at least for me, it would have to be based on first trust and secondly physical attraction. I don't think I could enter a D/s relationship unless I really trusted the other person. I'm sure that has to be true in most D/s relationships, at least from the perspective of the /s.

I know for me now, it couldn't work outside of our relationship. We aren't completely monogamous, we have on occasion had sex with other couples and some single lesbians but always together. For us there is no outside of our relationship. And the truth is I really don't have a desire to be /s to anyone else but if I had discovered my desire before Jessie and I became a couple, I know love would not have been a requirement.

 

[Cmay]

I guess the base question is can you trust someone you don't love?

I believe yes, yes you can. Whether the relationship is D/s or completely platonic there are many relationships out there based on trust, where love is absent.

I, myself have trusted someone implicitly, but I couldn't stand them. This person was an Ass with a capital "A", but I knew that when it came down to it, they would always do the right thing, almost compulsively.

I think that all relationships should be based off of trust, where it leads from there is entirely up to the individuals.

I have played with a few people in the beginning, so mile I wouldn't even really call it play. However, I have only 'really" played seriously with one person. There is love there, but before there was love there was trust. So to be in a D/s relationship with out love is possible, but for how long? Love is strange and creeps in when you least expect it.